Jim Matheson's Hockey World

Hockey World

When Tyler Myers took that shot off the foot at Rexall Place last Friday and hobbled off, Buffalo GM Tim Murray’s heart probably skipped several beats because while he can easily move his UFA forwards Drew Stafford and Chris Stewart, the real trading chip is the right-handed shooting 6’8” D-man Myers. Myers was back next game in Vancouver, playing his usual 20 minutes-plus, but with Finn Rasmus Ristolainen and Russian Nikita Zadorov they have two young D in their stable. I could see a bidding war between the Anaheim Ducks and Detroit Red Wings, who have a smorgasbord of young forwards to give the offensively-challenged Sabres, who had 73 5-on-5 goals in their first 50 games. Also the requisite defencemen in a deal, although what the Sabres need most is probably a goalie, as TSN commentator Craig Button says. Button thinks Murray should ask for current farmhand John Gibson straight-up from the Ducks.

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*Jeff Petry was a second-round draft in 2006 so if the Oilers do deal their UFA D-man who is clearly their best blueliner at this time, they should stop at nothing but a second-rounder plus a solid prospect D back. If it’s the Wings, definitely hold out for Xavier Ouellet or Ryan Sproul along with the pick. I believe the Canadiens have interest in Petry, too.

Coaching hockey is a road of twists and turns. Nobody knows that more than Kevin Dineen, who was fired by the Florida Panthers in November 2013, was unemployed for five weeks, then was asked out of the blue to coach Canada’s women’s hockey team at the Sochi Olympics. Dineen, who took over as head coach after Dan Church abruptly quit two months before the Olympics, helped Canada win a gold medal with a heart-stopping rally to beat the United States.

With Sergei Bobrovsky’s contract ($5.625-million salary-cap hit) up this July, expect the Columbus Blue Jackets to work out a new eight-year deal for Goalie Bob. Tuukka Rask’s $7.5-million a year in Boston would be a fair comparable, although Rask has a Stanley Cup ring and Bobrovsky doesn’t. It’s interesting, as always, that while you can’t win without a high-end goalie, there’s only eight goaltenders in the top 50 NHL salaries this season. Henrik Lundqvist leads the way at $11 million. Others in the top 50 — Rask, Pekka Rinne and Jonathan Quick ($7 million), Carey Price ($6.75M), Roberto Luongo ($6.71M), Cam Ward ($6.7M) and Corey Crawford ($6.5M). Rask, Quick, Ward and Crawford have all won the Stanley Cup. If the Edmonton Oilers are looking to upgrade their organization’s goaltending, they should be all over trading for Finland’s world junior netminder Juuse Saros. He’s undersized at five-foot-11, 176 pounds, but was drafted in the fourth round by the Nashville Predators in 2013.

Frank Musil, who first met Hockey Hall of Fame goaltender Dominik Hasek in Grade 3 at a language school in Pardubice, Czech Republic, has always known that his boyhood friend was different, unpredictable and one-of-a-kind special as an athlete. “Dom would go to games and forget his goalie pads and still win the game with borrowed ones,” said the Edmonton Oilers’ amateur scout and longtime NHL defenceman, who defected to the Minnesota North Stars in 1986.

Ales Hemsky has no even-strength points and just one assist on the power play in 15 games with Dallas this season, and he’s playing the seventh-most minutes among the Stars’ forwards (13:36). He was last guy off ice at the morning practice in Los Angeles on Thursday and was skated hard, usually a sign of a scratched player — something he hasn’t been since his early days with the Edmonton Oilers.

The two longest-serving NHL coaches, Barry Trotz and Lindy Ruff, have said their goodbyes in Nashville and Buffalo, respectively, and moved on to Washington and Dallas. Trotz’s contract was not extended; Ruff was fired.

Mathieu Perreault is a good little cheap centre who did some nice things as the guy behind Anaheim Ducks captain Ryan Getzlaf, but as sure as the Zamboni comes out every period to resurface the ice at the Honda Center, you can bet general manager Bob Murray will be taking another run at Ryan Kesler before the NHL entry draft. No team has the assets the Ducks have to get this deal done if the Vancouver Canucks want to trade within the Pacific Division to get younger.

Florida Panthers general manager Dale Tallon said he’s fully open for business to deal the first overall draft pick in the NHL entry draft on June 27 — maybe because he thinks the youngster he covets will be there at No. 5, 6 or 7 — so if he can get a live, warm body off a team for the No. 1 selection and move back, he’ll grab it. That certainly puts the Edmonton Oilers, who are picking third, on alert.

While Jaromir Jagr rolls along — hockey is his life, he has no family concerns and they may have to cut the skates off him — this might be it for fellow 42-year-old Ray Whitney, the only pick from the Eric Lindros’s 1991 NHL draft year still playing. Jagr, who seems oblivious to what it says on his birth certificate, has signed on to play another year for New Jersey after leading the Devils with 67 points this season.

Here’s what you should know about Prince Albert Raiders centre Leon Draisaitl, with the Edmonton Oilers once again having their NHL entry draft table close to the stage with the other bottom-feeders at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia. Unless both players are gone by the time it’s their turn to pick on June 27, the Oilers will sing out the name of Draisaitl or Barrie Colts defenceman Aaron Ekblad.

What should the Edmonton Oilers do with Nail Yakupov? Do they work with him and take several steps back, consider him just a project like any other draft pick — not the first name called — and hope he finds some hockey sense to go with his hockey skill? You need both.

On the day after the NHL trade deadline, it seemed perfectly fitting that Butch Goring was hanging around Rexall Place in his current duties as the New York Islanders TV colourman. It was Goring, who was buried in the Los Angeles lineup playing behind Marcel Dionne, who may have started the deadline craze 34 years ago. He was the missing piece of the Islanders’ puzzle as they started their four-year Stanley Cup tear.

If you thought there was an outcry when Bobby Ryan (four 30-goal seasons) didn’t make Team USA for the Sochi Olympics, watch the shots blowing hard if P.K. Subban doesn’t make Canada’s squad. But it won’t happen. Subban will be one of the eight defencemen named to the Canadian roster on Tuesday.

When veteran winger Ales Hemsky turns 30 on Aug. 13, he more than likely will not be an Edmonton Oiler. Hemsky has tugged on an Oilers jersey 627 times if you count the 30 playoff games he played since his first game here 11 years ago. He has 451 career points and only seven former Oilers — Wayne Gretzky, Jari Kurri, Mark Messier, Glenn Anderson, Paul Coffey, Doug Weight and Ryan Smyth — have more. The first five are in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

At the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas where the NHL awards show was housed last week, there was a Penske Maserati dealership outside the front doors. The sticker price on the vehicles was, well, several gulps. You will probably be able to say the same for the two shiniest free-agents, Ryan Suter and Zach Parise, when they come on the market on Sunday.

Trying to pick NHL entry draft winners and losers is a fool’s job. Who ever thought that Cam Ward would be the second-best player to come out of the first round of the 2002 draft — he was picked 25th overall by the Carolina Hurricanes — outside of his dad Ken?

Where does Nicklas Lidstrom rate among the greats? I say he’s in the Top 25 players of all-time, which is different than throwing him into a conversation about whether he was better than Ray Bourque or Doug Harvey, with Bobby Orr at the summit of the defence mountain.

Would you trade Alex Ovechkin if you were Washington Capitals general manager George McPhee? Or would it be over Caps owner Ted Leonsis’s dead body? Leonsis is paying Ovie $9 million for two more years, then seven years at $10 million. He loves the Russian forward. It’s mutual, certainly twice a month, on payday.

Kevin Lowe laughs off the cloak ’n’ dagger suggestion that he brought over junior defenceman Ryan Murray for his Canadian world championship team so he could test-drive the 18-year-old for the Edmonton Oilers before the June draft.

Here’s what we know about Vancouver Canucks goalie Roberto Luongo: He is proud he’s won 339 career games, 19th most in history, and could win 460 which would put him in the top four all-time if he can stay healthy, and there are 47-million reasons over the next 10 years why he’s not going to be easy to trade.

Several years back, a U.S.-based hockey writer was asked why Jarome Iginla hadn’t found his way onto their list of the top five Hart Trophy candidates, even though he had won the scoring title with the non-playoff bound Calgary Flames. “There are no winners on losers,” said the reporter.

Montreal Canadiens owner and president Geoff Molson’s news conference to tell Habs Nation that Pierre Gauthier, who seldom talked in French or English, had been fired as general manager — not just because he was aloof, but because he didn’t manage the iconic club well — highlighted the the team’s need for stability.

Who’s Hot: Raffi Torres has come alive for the Phoenix Coyotes with six goals in his last 12 games. Who’s Not: Dany Heatley has two goals in his last 17 games for the Minnesota Wild and only has 20 on the year.

Could Andy Moog play in today’s NHL? How about Mike Vernon? Both were five-foot-nine and 170 pounds. Grant Fuhr looked as big as a sumo wrestler in net some nights, the way he covered every inch of space, but he was only five-foot-11 and 185.

Outside of his work clothes, Erik Karlsson looks like he’d get carded at a bar after asking his dad for the keys to the car.
He’s baby-faced, but Karlsson might be a better defenceman this season than the Boston Bruins’ Zdeno Chara, who is 80 pounds heavier and nine inches taller.

Here are some suggested things to do at Edmonton Oilers home games as the NHL season slowly expires. For starters, forget fussing over wins and losses. It’s not that the Oilers won’t win many of the nine remaining home games (they also have nine remaining on the road). They might well, having played some quality teams (Boston Bruins, St. Louis Blues) tough in recent times.